Mystery fans have lost one of the genre’s most original voices. Tony Hillerman, the author of 18 Navajo-themed mysteries, has died at 83.

When I began reading his novels back in the early 1990’s, he’d already been hard at it for over twenty years. From my first Hillerman, I was captivated by his style. His descriptions of the southwestern landscape—the lonely, empty land under an enormous and engulfing sky—served as more than a backdrop; they informed his characters as surely as if they’d grown from the rocky dirt itself. When detective Joe Leaphorn took a day’s drive across the washboard roads into the New Mexico outback to follow a lead, you felt the isolation of the vast expanses in your bones.

Native American culture isn’t much discussed in genre fiction, but Hillerman seemed to grasp the nuances of modern Navajo existence. He wrote with keen sensitivity about characters who lived difficult lives, scratching out a living in the red clay. Though not one himself, he avoided the trap of idealizing Native Americans. He made no bones about the problems modern Navajos face, and was honest in his portrayals while remaining sympathetic to their plight. Even his storylines unfolded with a particularly Navajo rhythm. He was unhurried, deliberative, and wove complex, character-driven plots that forced the reader to slow down and savor his words.

Tony Hillerman took us deep into the nation-within-a-nation that few outsiders have experienced and made us care enough to return, book after book. He was a true master of his craft. He will be missed.